Technical Do you think there is a problem with the car engine based off the exaust smoke?

[StanZlatan]

Hi i just changed the crannkshaft pulley and drove the car with injectors overheating for a few hours on and off before realizing with the mechanic we had to do a phonetic wheel reset.
It seems to me the car smokes a bit too much now. It is winter yes but what do you think? Will it resede as car learns? Is it because of winter?

 

[Eltezz]

Just looks like water vapour to me, perfectly normal.

 

[koalar]

drove the car with injectors overheating

Makes no sense to me


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[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I agree with the comments above. Don't understand what you mean by "injectors overheating".

Changed the crankshaft pulley, do you mean the pulley which drives the auxilliary (fan) belt or the cam belt pulley? and why did you come to the conclusion you needed to do a Phonic Wheel Relearn? was the engine management light on or flashing? If not what brought you to that conclusion?

The exhaust "smoke" looks like water vapour (steam) to me and is pretty normal when the weather gets colder. You're burning a hydrocarbon rich fuel in an oxygen rich gas and one of the products of combining the hydrogen and oxygen is Water. Heat it up a bit and you get steam which condesnses when it comes out the exhaust and hits the cold air. In fact, so much water is produced (I seem to remember from my college days that for every gallon of petrol you burn you get slightly more than a gallon of water) that if you just tootle around at low revs - city driving - it will condense into liquid water in the rear part of the exhaust system and can often be seen actually dribbling out of the end of the exhaust! Make the engine work harder and hotter, as when out on the open road and the water turns into super heated steam, which is invisible, and, once the pipework of the exhaust has heated up, you don't see it leaving the exhaust.

Edit. in very basic terms, white smoke from the exhaust is usually steam as mentioned in the above. Only get worried about steam if the coolant level is dropping as this may point to a head gasket problem. Blue smoke is nearly always oil being burnt and can have many causes but often points to excessive engine wear. Black smoke is usually over fueling and very often caused by lack of regular servicing and a well blocked air filter.

 

[jrkitching]

In fact, so much water is produced (I seem to remember from my college days that for every gallon of petrol you burn you get slightly more than a gallon of water) that if you just tootle around at low revs - city driving - it will condense into liquid water in the rear part of the exhaust system and can often be seen actually dribbling out of the end of the exhaust!

And on OEM exhaust systems, there is even a small hole positioned at the lowest point on the rear silencer for this condensed water to dribble out of. That said, most of it still just seems to splutter out of the tailpipe.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

@StanZlatan - how's things going. Have you decided you've got a problem or not? I'd love to know what you were refering to when you spoke of "overheating injectors" and why you decided a Phonic Wheel Relearn was needed?

Hope all is working out Ok?

Happy new year and all best wishes
Jock

 

[KPat]

And on OEM exhaust systems, there is even a small hole positioned at the lowest point on the rear silencer for this condensed water to dribble out of. That said, most of it still just seems to splutter out of the tailpipe.

On the Panda it's at the bottom of the rear silencer's front endplate. Not a lot of people know that

 

[Slow Lemon]

Hello everyone!
Watching the video, I think that this smoke is not worrying at first. However, I will tell you my case. During last winter my Panda (year 2017; 1.3 95 hp) began to emit white smoke, initially very little, just like in the video; and it disappeared after a few minutes. Suddenly one day I noticed that the smoke was much denser and came out in large quantities; it took longer to disappear, approximately 10-15 minutes of driving. I was worried when I noticed that when accelerating in second gear a lot of smoke was produced. I feared that some injector was giving problems and producing poor combustion in some cylinder.
I added an injector cleaning additive from a well-known German brand to the fuel and the smoke stopped coming out for a while. After a few months, and after several new tank fills, the white smoke reappeared, although in smaller quantities and less dense,
always on the first cold start. (Starting has always been perfect)
In the middle of August, the warning light came on indicating a "glow plug" failure.

I didn't wait and took the car to the garage, where they replaced all four "glow plugs" of the "NGK" brand. Since then, combustion has been perfect, and there is no smoke at all even during morning start-up, at temperatures between 4-0 degrees Celsius.
I was glad that the problem was with the glow plugs and not with the injectors; the latter are less accessible and much more expensive to replace.

 

[Eltezz]

The OP’s car is a 1.2 petrol so you cannot compare the two. Your car was most likely suffering from a gradually failing glow plug (or plugs) as this will cause white smoke when starting from cold.

It’s good that you finally got it sorted out.

 

[Slow Lemon]

Eltezz, you are absolutely right, they are not strictly comparable.
I still think that smoke is perfectly normal on a cold, wet morning in that type of engine.
Although it is very unlikely, part of the spark plug electrode (is that what it is called?) or the ceramic coating can come off and enter the cylinder and cause different symptoms, including smoke in the exhaust. I saw a video yesterday of this fault in an Audi A3.
I had a BMW E30 and I added injector cleaner to the petrol; it never produced smoke.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

The OP’s car is a 1.2 petrol so you cannot compare the two. Your car was most likely suffering from a gradually failing glow plug (or plugs) as this will cause white smoke when starting from cold.

It’s good that you finally got it sorted out.

Yup, the two are not comparable but the big giveaway is that the white, smoke from a diesel - caused by unburnt/incomplete combustion of the fuel - really stinks whereas the steam from a petrol is much less noxious. The boss of one of the wee garages I worked in made extra income from garaging vans and small lorries overnight in the securely locked main workshop. Every morning we had to start these vehicles and drive them outside into the park. The smoke was terrible and I'll never forget the choking smell and weeping eyes we had to live with for the first half hour or so of the working day.

 

[StanZlatan]

@StanZlatan - how's things going. Have you decided you've got a problem or not? I'd love to know what you were refering to when you spoke of "overheating injectors" and why you decided a Phonic Wheel Relearn was needed?

Hope all is working out Ok?

Happy new year and all best wishes
Jock

This subject exapnded without notifications.
Engine was changed and i think was changed with a fiat 500.
So each time you change or touch or who knows may be molest the crakshaft pulley the one charging the battery you have to reset everything and do a phonetic wheel relearn.

Otherwise the computer puts the injectors to work at maximum you can hear the perol spraying. If you are so naive and ignorant to know this like us and drive the car the dreaded flashing engine sighn comes. If you continue some injectors shut down due to overheating.
I pray no damage was done to the engine but we did the relearn and car drives fine so far i can see. Nothing else i can do at the moment.
Moder Cars are super complex. Old soviet technology is the best.

 

[bugsymike]

Moder Cars are super complex. Old soviet technology is the best.

Not 100% sure I would agree with you, having worked on Moskvich and Lada in the 70s.

 

[StanZlatan]

Well my uncle did 5 million kilometers on his Moskvish or Lada in the 90s. He maintained himself in his garage. Modern cars do 10 000 and they break. You also need to obtain multiple PTSDs and at least one rocket engeneering degree to sucesfully repair them.
I suspect its complex scam like so many projects comingnout of the west.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Well my uncle did 5 million kilometers on his Moskvish or Lada in the 90s. He maintained himself in his garage. Modern cars do 10 000 and they break. You also need to obtain multiple PTSDs and at least one rocket engeneering degree to sucesfully repair them.

Yup, repairing modern cars is not for the faint of heart. I did much more enjoy working on the stuff that was made before all the electronics came in but my choice would have been for a BL or Ford back in those days. I was involved in maintaining and repairing a couple of the old rear engined Skodas at one time and they were surprisingly reliable if properly looked after. The engine, I think, was a Renault design built under license?

I suspect its complex scam like so many projects comingnout of the west.

I just don't get involved in this sort of stuff - We, the ordinary people of this world, are just all "Jock Tamson's Bairns" who are trying to make the most of the hand we've been dealt despite attempts by many others, mainly our leaders, to thwart us.

 

[bugsymike]

Well my uncle did 5 million kilometers on his Moskvish or Lada in the 90s. He maintained himself in his garage. Modern cars do 10 000 and they break. You also need to obtain multiple PTSDs and at least one rocket engeneering degree to sucesfully repair them.
I suspect its complex scam like so many projects comingnout of the west.

I bet it wasn't the same one that did 5 million Kilometers.
I have owned several Ladas and a Moskvich 427 (estate) from the 1970s and agree easier to work on than modern vehicles although that is more often.
Working at the Dealers we were also agents for Mazda, Lada and Wartburg.
Where the Mazda pre delivery inspection could be done in 30 minutes, to make the Moskvich safe to use on English roads often took 2 days!
From brand new vehicles with no grease inside the front hub bearings,cylinder heads that were porous ( so what appeared to be a head gasket issue, on pressure testing the radiator with the cam cover off coolant could be seen seeping from the head casting) to road testing and on braking hard the car would dive to the middle of oncoming traffic, then 100 yards further braking again and the car would try and climb on the pavement! This we found was due to the cast iron machining dust still left in the brake drums, apart from that the massive brake travel due to the self adjuster mechanism being "slack in a threaded ring" inside the wheel cylinders.
Also if customers complained we would fit new European tyres as the Russian ones were eccentric so cars would go up and down.
Apart from other faults, on rebuilding a Lada 1200 engine I found several broken remains of timing chain guides that had broken off and dropped into the sump!
Incidentally we did our best as a workshop for our customers and were awarded a prize of several items of Sun Diagnostic equipment from the importers in Bridlington where I used to go for training courses.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I never really had anything to do with vehicles from the old communist block countries, although from time to time there would be one in distress turn up in the shop needing some love. Often a Lada and usually badly neglected. I remember one with a timing chain so slack it had actually machined a small hole in the side of the cover! The owner was asking us to cure the oil leak but seemed oblivious to the absolutely horrendous racket coming from the engine. A good friend at that time, not seen him for many years, had a Lada saloon, which I drove a number of times, but I just couldn't get on with the throttle pedal position. To clear the wheel arch when converted to RHD it had to be placed too close to the driver and just wasn't a comfortable position for me.

I've always found the old Wartburgs (311, 312 etc) attractive and love the noise of those 3 cylinder two stroke engines - never driven or worked on one though.

Just said above that I'd never had anything to do with the old communist block cars. However that's not strictly correct. I did have a brief period trying to sell Polski Fiats. However i prefer to try to forget about that.

 

[StanZlatan]

I feel distinctive petrol smell in the exhaust. I feel something is off but it looks like the exhaust is clean and the spark plugs are clean. I dont see any codes. I have to see what will break.

 

[bugsymike]

I never really had anything to do with vehicles from the old communist block countries, although from time to time there would be one in distress turn up in the shop needing some love. Often a Lada and usually badly neglected. I remember one with a timing chain so slack it had actually machined a small hole in the side of the cover! The owner was asking us to cure the oil leak but seemed oblivious to the absolutely horrendous racket coming from the engine. A good friend at that time, not seen him for many years, had a Lada saloon, which I drove a number of times, but I just couldn't get on with the throttle pedal position. To clear the wheel arch when converted to RHD it had to be placed too close to the driver and just wasn't a comfortable position for me.

I've always found the old Wartburgs (311, 312 etc) attractive and love the noise of those 3 cylinder two stroke engines - never driven or worked on one though.

Just said above that I'd never had anything to do with the old communist block cars. However that's not strictly correct. I did have a brief period trying to sell Polski Fiats. However i prefer to try to forget about that.

I too have seen the head "machined " by the timing chain, mind you also on Fiat 1.3 MJs.
The Lada throttle linkage was an issue, I used to carefully bend it and the brake pedal towards the transmission tunnel a little which helped, but you had to be wary of the plastic connections. Once fixed the customer was often agreeably surprised with the performance as now the second choke on the carb would work.
Talking about Ladas reminded me of the other issue on them, heavy steering/steering geometry. So we would correct that with the shims between the front lower wishbones and cross member.

 

[Eltezz]

Getting a bit off topic I think…